Victory

Two small victories to report today:

1) It is a week into December, and I am still able to run outside in shorts and a t-shirt.  I missed this the past 9 years when I was living in a much colder climate!

2) Someone stopped me today while I was running and asked me for directions.  I was more than a mile from home but I still knew how to direct him, even the names of the streets to turn on.  I'm learning my way around and am feeling very confident navigating here.

Yay.

Road Trip 2011: Part 4

To catch up on our Road Trip: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

After leaving Grand Tetons National Park the morning of Day 5, we continued on the road and soon entered Yellowstone National Park.  Though I think seeing the moose so close was probably my favorite wildlife sighting, we had yet to see any buffalo up close.  But today was our day.  This guy was just walking through the clearing as we were checking out the geysers.

I find their shape so funny: big shoulders and rather slender hips!

Yellowstone's roads look like a figure-eight, and the easiest way to see all the sights is to drive around the perimeter, getting out of the car and taking short hikes to each of the exciting features along the way.  The first attraction of the day was Old Faithful.  We lucked out timing-wise, arriving only 20 minutes before the expected eruption time.  Pretty impressive and certainly louder than I had expected.

The water spurting out is almost as high as the tree line in this photo.

We took in all the sights off the figure-eight path: hot springs, huge water falls, fumaroles, geysers, and bubbling mud pots.

The hot springs were really clear and colorful.  Doesn't this one look inviting?

Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces

As long as you know your cue--pull off the road if you see lots of other cars pulled off--you will see interesting sights.  We pulled off here, where some other park visitors were expecting to see a young pack of wolves crossing the hills, based on the patterns they had come to understand after their two week stay in the park.  One visitor showed us his video from the night before when a bear and her two cubs had come up over the hills on their way home for the night.  If we had unlimited time, I would have loved to participate in a 2-week long wildlife watch.  But that will have to wait until retirement!

A buffalo crossing the river

"I'll just have grass: I'm watching my figure."

After wildlife spotting and observing the beautiful views until well past sun-down, we set up the tent once again.  This time we were a bit smarter and had booked a campsite earlier that morning, as we entered Yellowstone.  So day 5 of the road trip came to an end with our tent quickly assembled and eyelids rapidly closed.

Day 6 included over 12 hours of driving, without much to report.  More road games, interesting book-on-tape stories, and lots of small towns.  We finally ended up in Reno, Nevada, our final stop before pulling into California the following day.

We were able to book a hotel room in a casino while on the road, thanks to technology, which made for a pretty fun reward after a long day of driving.  I experienced my first true buffet (could barely walk afterwards), and I began the evening at the blackjack tables as merely a spectator, until I finally gained the confidence to try my hand.  Without much good luck, though, we called it a night.  The next morning we needed to leave Reno before 5am in order to pull into San Francisco in time to meet the mover (or so we thought....)

Leaving at 4:45am on Day 7 was a bit painful, but we were about to cross our final state line, and we could rest up at the finish line.

Still pitch black outside by the time we crossed into California.

A little over 4 hours of driving (and Sacramento traffic) later, we arrived at the storage unit to meet our moving truck driver, where we had agreed to unload.  Except, the moving truck was nowhere to be found, and our mover was conveniently ignoring my phone calls.  After several hours, we gave up and drove around San Francisco; at least we'd take this opportunity to get a feel for the different neighborhoods while we waited for any news from our mover.  Finally, a returned call confirmed our driver was a flake...a rather poor excuse for a big mixup (he was down in LA, unloading someone else's stuff that day.)

Almost three months later, I was still a bit annoyed at the unprofessional communication with the moving truck driver and the delay in our unloading.  However, last week I noticed a several hundred dollar credit to my card from the moving company.  I can only assume it is a refund for their mixup?  Whatever--I'll take it!

Anyway, the road trip ended with us in our brand new city.  We spent the next week apartment-hunting and house-sitting (well, I did, at least.  One of us had to start the new job the next day!).

Road Trip 2011: Part 3

Part 1
Part 2

After maintaining a relatively direct west-ward route, we veered off quite a bit after leaving Denver.  Our next destination was probably what I was most anticipating: Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks.

Day 4 took us through some beautiful terrain, though we didn't have much to report before finally hitting Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Our plan was to eat an early dinner at Snake River Brewery (are you catching on to the pattern yet?) and then find a campsite in Grand Tetons National Park.  Well, dinner was great, once again.  The trouble came when we went to find a campsite.





Labor Day had passed, and temperatures were dropping below freezing at night, so with over 1000 campsites, we didn't figure it would be any trouble to roll in and find an empty site.  But upon entering the park, we were told that the ranger had just radioed in saying there were no remaining sites to be sold.  The only alternative he could offer was to double-check and see if an empty campsite had been overlooked or to seek lodging an hour further, into Yellowstone.

I wanted to watch this guy for so long!  Who needs a campsite?

Well...we were hoping to get lucky, so we drove past the closed ranger station at Colter Bay, hoping he had overlooked a few empty sites.  Voila!  We found one after searching a couple rows of sites.  It turns out most of our fellow campers were sleeping in RVs, so our theory that few people would want to bear the cold was misguided.

Sun setting over Grand Tetons (before we had any sense of urgency)

By now the sun had set, and we quickly set up our tent in the dark and unloaded the sleeping bags, pads, and clothes into the tent, when suddenly a pair of headlights approached and the passenger barked that we were in their spot.  Rather than make a scene or mention that there was nothing marking their site that would have indicated it had been claimed, we sheepishly threw everything back into the car, strapped the surfboard back on, and peeled out (but not after leaving them a "present."  Ask me in person about this; I won't be admitting it on the blog :)

So...bummer.  Now it was getting close to 9pm, it had been dark for a while, we didn't have a campsite, and even if there had been some open ones, surely they had been claimed during the time we were setting up our first site.  With our only other option to drive an hour (or--oh yeah--pay $800 for a night  at their fancy lodge, if there was vacancy), we drove through the remaining rows of campsites just to double-check.  And then we came to a row where we saw at least 3 or 4 empty sites.  We were a bit encouraged, and after asking some campsite neighbors if they had seen anyone at the sites that day, we were given the go-ahead to claim a spot.  Out came our tent, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, and clothes came, and that tent was set up so fast.  We were getting quick at this!  It took us an extra hour to fall asleep because every time we heard the sound of a car or saw lights shine through our tent, our bodies froze and we held our breath thinking we were going to be kicked out of our spot again.  Thankfully, we were finally able to sleep, and we woke up the next morning ready to enjoy the rest of Grand Tetons and head into Yellowstone.

Armed with coffee (me) and hot chocolate (him) we watching the sun hit the Tetons

Morning views

More to come.

To catch up on the Road Trip:
Part 1
Part 2

Road Trip 2011: Part 2

With Day 1 of our Road Trip under our belts, we woke up early to begin Day 2: Nashville to Kansas City.

The scheduled lunch stop for the day would be in St. Louis, where we had our hearts set on some great barbecue.

 Yelp reviews steered us to Pappy's in St. Louis, and we were not disappointed!
While the line was long, the wait was worth it.  Famous for their ribs, we trusted the crowd, and soon had ribs and brisket at our indoor picnic table.  We learned, though, that Pappy's doesn't serve beer.  As perpetually well-stocked travelers, all it took was a quick run out to the stocked cooler in the car*, and we truly had a great barbecue feast.

*Boulevard Brewing Co., Meredith!

This line must mean they serve good ribs

After several more hours of driving, we pulled into Kansas City, where we couldn't help but hit another barbecue place for dinner--this time an old favorite.   This was a good end to Day 2.

A police man called me a tourist for taking this photo.  I hope you're grateful.

Road Trip Day 3 was my birthday, and part of my present was getting to be the passenger most of the day.
I drove just until he'd finished a conference call for the new job, then I gave up the wheel and assumed buffalo watch as we crossed Kansas.
Unfortunately, there were no buffalo to be seen that day, but I did see plenty of these:

Wind Turbines

It's not corn!  This is actually sorghum.

 We spent a few hours with Grandma, who lives in a very small town in Kansas.  We shared pictures and stories before hitting the road again.  We did drive through her small town and pass by some special spots first.

The old dairy my mother-in-law's family ran when she was growing up

Some road-trip games saved the day: Slang Flashcards (who knew I needed so much work on my slang?)  We also received a free tank of gas (long story).

By the end of the day, we were relieved to be pulling into Denver, Colorado.  Despite our veering course to hit the barbecue joints the day before, we found ourselves safely back on the brewery trail, and we enjoyed my birthday dinner at Wynkoop Brewing Company, right as the sun was setting.  Nice views!

Highlights of the night were tasting the green chile beer--they have removed all the heat from the chilies, but left the flavor...it was so interesting!--and the buffalo wings, which were perhaps the best we've ever had.

Day 3 ended with the smell sounds coming from the crazy group of hippies that shared our hotel with us.  They were there for a concert, and they were hard to miss.  We found them still awake and doing their thing early the next morning, when I got heckled about the surfboard on top our car in Denver...  Ohhh, hippies, get back to your drum circle.

More to come.

To catch up on the Road Trip:

Part 1

Road Trip 2011: Part 1

Happy December!  It's hard to believe we've hit the final month of 2011 already.  Without the climate changes signaling fall then winter that we used to see in North Carolina, we don't really have many weather cues here in California to remind us that we're heading towards winter.  There's no way to ignore the overwhelming reminders in the stores and my email inbox, though.  Every company is sending out coupons and reminding us to start our holiday shopping.

Around this time of year for the past few years I have started to put together a photo book using photos from the past year.  It's quite easy in iPhoto, since there's the handy "Last 12 Months" folder already created for you.  I pull the best photos from the folder and throw them into a photo book layout, then just wait a few weeks for my inbox to present me with a coupon.  (A coupon will undoubtedly show up at least a few times over the holidays!)  With the book layout already complete, all I have to do is press "order" whenever I receive a coupon.  And the best part is there really is no deadline to order--who cares if we receive our "2011 Highlights" book in March 2012?

Anyway, today I started on the layout for our 2011 photo book.  It's really fun going back through all the photos and remembering how much we've fit into one year.  This year, especially, will be a long book: we celebrated a PhD graduation, a trip to Italy, a road trip from coast to coast, a cross-country move, 3 weddings, and a college reunion.

As long as I am sorting through the highlights photos, I figured I would share some of those highlights here.

Without further ado, our cross-country road trip: part 1:

Leaving for our road trip coincided with a number of other important events this summer.  In the 5 week period between July 20 and September 6, there was the PhD defense, wrapping up both our jobs, an amazing two week tour of Italy, arrival back home where house guests awaited us, meeting our brand-new nephew, signing an offer on the house, packing all our belongings, and leaving our old home.  So by the time the day came to begin our road trip, we were tired.  But also so excited about the adventure ahead.  

We had joked during our time in Italy, where we visited 6 different cities, that we knew it was time to move on to the next city when the weather changed; it seemed like each travel day we awoke to clouds or sprinkling rain--time for the next destination!  (I must have learned this tip from my mom, Mary Poppins.) 

"I will stay until the wind changes."

Well, without fail, the "wind changed" both on moving-truck day and the day we started the road trip a few days later.  We got totally drenched while loading up the car with the remaining items in our house.  

After snapping some final pictures of the empty house, we hopped in the car, surfboard on top, and headed off.

Once we hit the interstate, the driving conditions worsened to become the least visible and probably most dangerous that I've ever driven in.  So I knew it was a sign to move on (ha).  On the bright side, we were loaded up with a road-trip survival kit from my wonderful co-workers, and we had an exciting first destination for lunch: Asheville.

Asheville was one of our absolute favorite places to visit when we lived in North Carolina.  The artist-town is small but has lots of character, and it certainly has some gorgeous mountainous scenery going for it.  Another thing going for it is the large number of breweries the city boasts, and we had one destination in mind: Barley's Tap Room.  

That's just a fraction of their taps, and it's mostly all local beer.

 In a fit of nostalgia, we also had to buy Barley's t-shirts.  I had this unexpected need to represent my old state. 

After some beers and lunch, we sadly said goodbye to Barley's and Asheville.  I really hope to return some time soon.  Maybe we can take our new nephew there when he's a little bigger. (to Asheville, not Barley's!)

Our final destination for day 1 was Nashville, Tennessee.  I was beyond excited to see what Nashville was all about, but I soon came to realize that you don't see a whole lot in the 2 waking (but dark) hours you spend in a town when you are a bit tight on time during road trips.  Regardless, we had a great dinner at Rotier's, a recommendation from a friend, which hit the spot.  

With a stroll down Broadway, we called an end to Day 1.  Day 2 would take us all the way to Kansas City, and we'd have a lot of driving to do the next day to get there.

More to come...